Dear Friend of the Cathedral
Here we are, half way through Lent, so time to acquaint ourselves with the plans for Holy Week and Easter and to remind ourselves of the three Lent study groups being offered by the Cathedral.
Lent Study groups
- Incarnate! Each Sunday, after the 10:30 service, a guest speaker joins us over zoom. You can watch the presentation with others in the cathedral, or watch in your home over zoom. This week the speaker is Sally Edwards, an Episcopal laywoman and hospice chaplain who is now terminally ill. She holds a Master’s in Divinity from General Theological Seminary. She taught ballet for 26 years and has been a spiritual director equally long. She is currently working on a memoir, Encounters with Mortality.
- The Nicene Creed. Tuesday March 22 (note change of day) and Wednesday March 30 at 7pm on zoom, evening prayer and study led by Ben Crosby.
- Nurturing Creation short daily reading, reflection and prayer, sent out by PWRDF
You need to sign up to receive an email each day during Lent.
Nurturing Creation - The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund
Brenda Linn is hosting a zoom meeting each day at 1pm for people who would like to spend 10-15 minutes reading that day’s offering together. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83107262453?pwd=UWhnU0d2NmNLMU5SaW12bENnMlBqUT09
Meeting ID: 831 0726 2453, Passcode: 108727
Holy Week and Easter
Deborah writes:
Holy Week, the annual commemoration of the final week of Jesus’ life, is the lynchpin of the Christian year. It is the one week in which we know enough about Jesus’ daily activities that we can accompany him step by step, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to the institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, his suffering and death on Good Friday, and then the magic of the whole story of our faith, culminating with the resurrection, at the Great Vigil. We encourage each of you to attend as many of these as you can; it is transformative for your faith, and perhaps for your life as well.
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, on April 10. Palms will be distributed and there will be special liturgies and music at the regular Sunday services.
On Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, a group led by Janet King will be making palm crosses, and another group, led by Edward Yankie, will be dusting and polishing the pews and the brass. Helpers very welcome.
Janet King comments:
Making these crosses in person is fun, and people of all ages and skill are invited - instruction available. We need to make enough for the services on Palm Sunday - for the choir leading the procession, and for the congregations in the church, as well as for visitors later in Holy Week. Some crosses will be delivered to parishioners who cannot come to church. Talk to Janet King for details. The church will have decorations made by the late Dorothy Oidi, beautiful decorations which George Deere has kept safely.
Daily special services for Holy Week
(https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/events-calendar/)
Monday: Compline (English), 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday: Compline (French), 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Tenebrae, 7:30 p.m.
Maundy Thursday: Eucharist with washing of feet, 7:30 p.m.
Good Friday:
10:00 a.m. Children’s worship with Godly Play and art response
1:00 Meditative service of readings and music
2:00 Good Friday liturgy
Holy Saturday: Great Vigil of Easter, 7:30 p.m. Bring your bells!
Volunteers needed
Extra stewards and readers are urgently needed to cover these services. Please contact Bob King at cccvigil@gmail.com to offer your help.
Gethsemane Watch
Bob King sends this message about the traditional silent vigil on the eve of Good Friday:
It has been a tradition of the Cathedral to hold a silent Vigil from the end of the service on Maundy Thursday evening until the church opens on Good Friday morning, with one or a few people at a time, for just an hour or two. This is in remembrance of the time when Jesus meditated and prayed, while his disciples tried to keep watch, in the hours leading up to his arrest. For the past two years, this has had to be done in people's homes, but we are planning to do it in person in the Cathedral once again this year. This is a deeply spiritual and moving experience for many, and a very special way to observe Holy Week. If you could participate, please send an email, specifying the one or two hours when you would like to be present, to cccvigil@gmail.com.
Annual General Vestry meeting
Wednesday, March 23 at 7pm on zoom. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86980158788?pwd=S0VWcTVlMTJsL0lzKzltMjRtUHlLZz09
Please be sure to attend this annual meeting if you possibly can. It is an important community event, reviewing what has happened in the previous year and a planning for the year to come. Treasurer, Jane Aitkens, will present a financial report for last year and a budget for 2022. Reports about the cathedral’s many activities are collected in the Annual Report for 2021 which is available, in both languages, on the Cathedral’s website https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/annual-report/ or https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/fr/rapport-annuel/
It’s a good idea to read the report before the meeting, not least because it contains the minutes of last year’s meeting and the agenda for this year.
Invest in Our Planet. What Will You Do to Protect the Earth?
This is the question being asked by the organisers of Earth Day 2022 which will be celebrated on April 22, the Friday after Easter. ESJAG is planning a mini conference the following day, April 23. More information to come.
Earth Hour will be observed on Saturday March 26 from 8:30 to 9:30, an hour when people are asked to turn off their lights and other power sources.
The organisers suggest some ways to honour the earth during this hour. https://www.earthhour.org/
The owners of the KPMG tower behind the Cathedral have announced that the lights in this building will be turned off during Earth Hour.
Meanwhile, there will be a concert in the Cathedral presented by the Chœur des Enfants de Montréal directed by Léa Moisan-Perrier, and the English Montreal School Board Senior Chorale, directed by Patricia Abbott. The performance will start at 8:15 and finish at 9:30, thus coinciding with Earth Hour. Tickets, $20 Adult | $15 Senior | $10 Student/Child, can be bought at the door or on the CEM website https://choeurdesenfantsdemontreal.com/upcoming-concerts-2/?lang=en
Fair trade kiosk
After the 10:30 AM service this Sunday March 20th, provided that the "Easter bunny" (Canada Post) delivers our order from the Ten Thousand Villages store in Cobourg, Ontario in time - complete with Divine milk chocolate Easter mini eggs (fair trade, bien sûr!).
Opening Up
There was some discussion at Forum about continuing to make masking mandatory in the cathedral in spite of the Provincial Government’s loosening of restrictions. It seems good to continue this policy, but vergers are well aware there might be problems with visitors refusing to wear a mask.
It was announced that the Social Service Society will hold a meeting on April 19 to discuss transitioning to an indoor location for the end of the month lunch. It’s not certain that all our guests will want to do this.
Ukraine
We continue to watch the war with anguish and to offer our prayers for peace. The Wednesday noon Eucharist is dedicated to prayers for peace. Each of our Sunday services now begins with the lighting of a candle, accompanied by a prayer for peace and a brief time of silence in which we are encouraged to offer our own prayers to God.
Donations supporting Ukrainian refugees
PWRDF is supporting Ukrainians forced to flee their homes due to the Russian invasion. Many have headed into Hungary where PWRDF is funding the organisation, Hungarian Interchurch Aid. If you would like to donate, or just read more about this initiative go to https://pwrdf.org/pwrdf-supports-ukrainians-forced-to-flee/
Brenda Linn offers this “food for thought”, an extract from a letter from the Ukraine:
Svitlana Krakovska, one of Ukraine’s leading climate scientists, managed to finalize the latest IPCC report from her home in Kyiv making Zoom calls while sheltering with her four children as Putin’s missiles destroyed nearby buildings.
“We will not surrender in Ukraine. And we hope the world will not surrender in building a climate-resilient future,” Krakovska declared. “Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots, fossil fuels, and our dependence on them.”
You are invited to join (https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/events-calendar/ )
Saturday, March 19 Club de lecture en français – L’annonce faite à Marie, de Paul Claudel. (Pièce de théatre), 16h30, zoom
March 23, Annual general Vestry, 7pm.
March 25 Travel talk visits Belgium at 1:30
Sunday, April 3, Book Group discussion of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. 7pm.
Recurring events –
Monday, 9:15, Morning Prayer and chat,
Monday, 12 noon Bible study
Tuesday, 19h, Prières du soir
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 12:15, midday Eucharists in person.
This Sunday marks the first day of Spring. Emily Dickinson rejoiced -
A LIGHT exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad 5
On solitary hills
That silence cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
Wordsworth, by contrast, was gloomy; listening to the birds, watching leaves and flowers unfurl, but finding himself in “that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts/ Bring sad thoughts to the mind.” As we think about the damage we have done to our planet earth, and pray for peace in Ukraine, we can probably empathize with Wordsworth’s sad reflection -
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
“Lines Written in Early Spring” by William Wordsworth
But in spite of our anxieties and fears we can take heart from Isaiah’s words: “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like the eagles…” (Is 40: 31)
Ann Elbourne, with thanks to Deborah, Bob and Janet King and Brenda Linn for their contributions and to Bertrand who in Deborah’s absence on retreat prepared the letter for mail chimp.
March 18, 2022
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Cathedral Activities for your calendar 
For detailed information, please see: https://www.montrealcathedral.ca/events-calendar/
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Tuesday March 22, Nicene Creed Lent discussion, 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 23, Annual Vestry, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, March 25, Adventures in Travel 1:30, zoom
Sunday, April 3, English Book Group discussion of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.
Recurring events:
Monday, 9:15 am, Morning Prayer, zoom
Monday, 12 pm, Brown Bag Bible Study, zoom
Mardi, 19h, Prières du soir avec discussion sur la Bible, zoom
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 12:15, midday Eucharist in person.
Dimanche Pain, partage, prière after the 9:00 a.m. service in person and on zoom, first and third Sundays.
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